Coyotes seem to enjoy stepping up onto a log to walk its length before hopping off to continue on a trek. There seems to be no purpose in doing this except that it’s fun — and maybe it’s a tiny bit more challenging than remaining on the ground.

The coyote began tunneling under the fence, but then backed up and stood up high to check if the coast was clear on all fronts. It was, so he then slithered effortlessly through the six inch opening under the fence: head down, through the opening on his belly, and up again on the other side, bending as agilely as a snake. He was obviously not in a hurry, not going anywhere in particular it seems, because he lingered on the other side of fence where he poked around for a while before casually trotting on.

I guess something exciting caught this fellow’s eye as I followed his movements from across a street. Whatever it was, it got away! The coyote ambled on, as he had been doing before the leaping began. Better luck next time.

A coyote stops at a log to scout for a possible meal. The scrutiny was intense and thorough, but yielded nothing! I didn’t start the video until most of the exploring was already over, but you can see from the stills I took before the video that the coyote was all over the log. I didn’t see any digging, just poking and sniffing, so I assume it was scent and not sound that drew the coyote to the log.

Occasionally I’ll add a post about another animal, to add some variety to the blog. I was too late to catch two squirrels chasing each other around the tree trunk. It was a noisy and active chase, which is why I noticed them. By the time my camera was up, one squirrel had leaped to another tree — you can briefly glimpse him in the lower left-hand corner of the video. Meanwhile, this center-stage guy took a break from the play with a yawn and a stretch while hanging from his toenails — and he does it again a second time!

This bush is actually called Coyote Brush! The coyote stopped when he got there, sniffed it, then got up on its two hind legs to reach higher. But that did not help accomplish anything. So finally the coyote leaped up to get even higher, and repeated this several times, falling to the ground rather clumsily after each leap! There must have been something pretty exciting in that bush. However, the coyote’s efforts ended there because a dog from a distant path spotted the coyote and came bounding up in pursuit. The coyote fled the scene. The dog, too, then became interested in the bush and sniffed it intensely for a minute, but the dog was not as resourceful as the coyote had been in his attempts to reach whatever was there. When the dog’s owner called, the dog returned to the path. I later returned to the bush to try to figure out what had been there — whatever it was, it was long gone, so it will always be a mystery.